My Omega
by Khashana
Summary: Thor is watching a movie about omegas, and is surprised to learn that the media doesn't reflect real life, like, at all. Tony and Clint educate him. Or, the one where omegahood is far more about depression than anything else. Everything is consensual. Slightly OOC, but I think format fixes that. Tony/Pepper, Tony/Steve, Clint/Natasha, Clint/Coulson.
1. Tony x nobody

Warnings: Slash, sex, extreme prejudice, self-harm, suicidal ideation. Rated for angst.

Reassurances: Despite being alpha/omega dynamics stuff, everything is totally 100% consensual. This is also not actually porn. So far.

* * *

Tony laughed his head off the first time he caught Thor watching a porno about omegas. Thor was deeply confused.

"Is the purpose of this film to elicit laughter? I was under the impression it was for something quite different."

Clint appeared before Tony could answer. "What's so funny?" the ever-curious archer wanted to know.

"Thor's watching one of those horrible pornos where the omega's so horny he _needs _it," said Tony, emphasizing the point with his hands.

Clint facepalmed and started laughing too, but then abruptly stopped. "What the hell does it say about our culture that those myths are so widespread that an alien visitor could read and watch all the media he wants and he'd probably never learn that it's all totally bogus until he talked to a real omega about it?" he asked quietly.

Tony stopped laughing too. "I try not to think about it," he answered in the same tone. "Some days I wonder if coming out publicly, throwing my support behind the omega equality campaigns, would actually move anything forward, and then I remember I'm a cynic."

"And it isn't worth it to risk getting your company taken away," Clint finished for him. "I don't blame you."

"You are an omega, Man of Iron?" asked Thor curiously. "I cannot tell the difference. Is this one of the falsehoods present in the film?"

"The pheromones thing? Yeah, total bullshit," said Tony, settling himself on one of the chairs in front of the TV. Clint followed suit.

"Man, it would suck if it weren't," Clint said. "We'd all be outed by force, and most of us would have to find an alpha for life and live off them."

"I do not understand," said Thor.

"There's an ancient law on the books saying if the owner or CEO of a company, anybody too high up to get properly fired by the usual means, turns out to be an omega, the rest of the company can legally oust him on grounds of emotional instability," said Tony. "And obviously any normal employee can get fired for being an omega. It's legally a mental illness."

"It is not a physical condition?" asked Thor.

"Well, there're a lot of problems defining these things. It's not as easy as saying, these cars are blue, these cars are red, et cetera. Where's the line between a physical condition of the brain and a mental illness? Humans created these words a long time ago before they really understood stuff, and when they realized it was more complicated than that, it was almost impossible to get people to let go of their concept that omegas are all crazy bastards. And they don't like the truth, so we're crazy _horny _bastards and everyone gets to laugh at us on TV and movies and shit." Tony exhaled loudly and grinned without humor.

"This is a grave prejudice," declared Thor. "I see that it would be less than advantageous to have your status widely known."

"Though, it would be nice if we could find out about omega kids and fucking warn them," said Clint, frowning.

"Yeah, imagine, mandatory school testing. 'You're good, you're good, you're an omega, listen, life at some point is going to become absolute shit really suddenly, here's what you do to prepare for it.' Yeah, especially if it was confidential," Tony agreed.

"A lot of omega kids kill themselves on first heat because they don't know what's going on and they can't rationalize their way through it," Clint added to Thor.

"Is it truly that dreadful?" Thor looked scandalized.

"Kinda dreadful. Let's see, my first time…"

* * *

He woke up with it. He hadn't noticed the sensations other omegas would tell him about in the years to come, because being alone was a fact of Tony Stark's life. But he noticed the heaviness in his chest, the difficulty in convincing himself that he really ought to get out of bed and go to school. Really, he wouldn't have bothered, except that he couldn't afford to skip school if he wanted to graduate early, and the prospect of getting to leave the empty Stark mansion with the small handful of servants who were his legal guardians by now, the prospect of going to college and finally having challenging classes and getting to build things all he wanted had been his unwavering goal since his parents and Jarvis had died.

He dragged himself down the stairs. It had taken him an extra ten minutes to get out of bed, the idea of food was actually repulsive, and he was moving slowly enough to know he couldn't make up the time by hurrying. So he skipped both breakfast—and Tony had Nutella for breakfast-and his shower and only just got to school on time.

He needn't have bothered. He could only concentrate for about ten seconds at a time before his mind wandered back to…nothingness. The feeling that happiness was an illusion. The inability to care about anything. After school, he dragged himself home again, forced down a piece of cheese for dinner, and went to bed, where he stared at the ceiling until he fell asleep.

The next morning was worse. He didn't even bother to get out of bed when he woke up with the insane desire to rake some kind of knife down his arms. It was like an itch, on the inside of his skin, except more a mental itch than physical.

What the hell is wrong with you, he asked himself. He'd had the occasional desire to see if self-harm was all it was cracked up to be, if it really did release mental pain, but the thought of being Tony Stark, orphan genius billionaire and _cutter _always shut that thought process down before he got really curious. He'd spent so long convincing government and administration he could manage on his own, that he didn't need to go into foster care (where they wouldn't understand him, where they would tell him he needed to slow down, talk out his feelings instead of build, where they wouldn't want him to graduate early) that the staff at Stark Mansion were practically family (true, but only when Jarvis was alive) anyway. Giving in to this soul-cloying depression would prove them right. Even if he was careful where he put the cuts, even if no one found out, he would know.

He didn't care anymore. He thought it was probably a good thing the nearest knife was an elevator ride and half a floor away. The lack of desire to get up and find it was probably the only thing keeping him from doing it now.

Instead, he ran the palms of his hands over his arms, pretending someone was there. Once, he thought he would be embarrassed to say he missed being touched, missed the way his mother would sometimes place a hand on his shoulder and plant a kiss on his forehead, miss the way Jarvis's hands would check for fever when he was sick, carry him upstairs when he was exhausted, expertly wrap bandages when he was hurt. Now, any embarrassment was covered by the desire to have someone there. Someone to touch him, yes, to hold him tightly, he felt like his skin didn't belong to him anymore and if someone would only hold him he felt sure it would remember that it was his. More than that, though. Someone to care. Someone to care that, fuck the fact he wasn't actually sick or hurt, it hurt just to _live _right now and Tony had _no idea why_. Why didn't anybody care?

The voice Tony usually quashed ruthlessly came rising out of the back of his mind. No one at school likes you. You're too smart for them, so they're mean, so you rub how smart you are in their faces and ruin any chance of making friends. Your parents didn't like you either. You were never as interesting as your father's toys. And your mother just didn't know what to do with you. You were too smart for the schoolkids and your mother, not smart enough, or creative enough, or _something_ enough for your father. You just can't please anyone. Worthless. Useless.

I'm graduating high school earlier than Father, Tony told himself. I'm going to take over SI when I'm eighteen, and by then I'll have graduated MIT or be close to it, and I can just build, and I'll build better things than Father. I can make better weapons than he ever did. And I'll make other things. Whatever I want. No one telling me I'm not good enough.

The words sounded empty. Tony mustered the energy to wrap himself more tightly in his blanket. It wasn't a human presence, but it helped minutely.

The pain only grew, and by dinnertime, Tony was in mental agony. All he could concentrate on, all he could think about, was that nobody cared about him, he was worth nothing, and that, quite honestly, death sounded better than this.

Finally, he gave in, got out of bed, and took the elevator down to the kitchen. There would be sleeping pills there. He would take enough to end this. He knew a regular dosage wouldn't put him out in this state—they never worked when he was both reasonably rested and really worked up about something, and he'd fallen asleep so early the night before. The difference between an overdose just high enough to forcibly put him to sleep and an overdose high enough to kill him wasn't something he knew exact dosages for. He didn't care. As he got into the elevator and pressed the button, though, dizziness overcame him and his vision blacked out.

He woke up in a hospital bed, an IV stuck in his arm and his favorite living staff member, Josie, who cooked, sitting next to him.

"Oh, good, you're awake!" she said, standing up and pressing his nurse call button. "I found you passed out half lying out of the elevator in the kitchen and had to call 911. Looks like you're taking after your father and working so hard you forget to eat and drink!"

The doctor came in moments later and explained to Tony that he'd been found severely dehydrated and with dangerously low blood sugar levels.

"Your mom tells me you're an intellectual and things like food and water just don't seem important sometimes," said the doctor, smiling at him in a fatherly way. "Let this be a lesson to the contrary, eh?"

Tony registered that having nothing but a piece of cheese for two days when his body was used to regular meals and a reasonable intake of water probably hadn't done him any good. He was, however, rather glad he had passed out, because the overwhelming desire to die had simply…gone.


	2. Clint x Madame Bovary

"You went through your first heat without an alpha?" Clint looked aghast. Tony nodded, smiling without humor.

"Sure did. Jarvis would have made a fabulous alpha, too bad he died before he could try."

"These films are indeed misleading to the point of being pure fiction," said Thor. "I am deeply distressed at your experience, Man of Iron. Are all such omega 'heats' of this type?"

"Pretty universal," agreed Clint, "unless you have an alpha to take the edge off."

"I find myself unwilling to make any assumptions based on the content I have already seen," said Thor. "Would you explain what an alpha truly is?"

"An alpha's only an alpha because an omega's an omega," said Tony, putting up his feet.

"Real helpful, Tony," said Clint. To Thor, he said, "Alphas are no different than anyone else. That's just a name we give to the people who help us out during heat. The need for touch, the need to feel like someone cares about us, if someone's there, filling those needs, that person's our alpha."

"You speak in the first person," said Thor, frowning. "Are you, too, an omega, Hawk Eyed One?"

"Yeah," Clint nodded. "My first heat wasn't as bad as Tony's, though. I did have an alpha, and she knew what was going on."

"Hang on—were you already in the circus?" asked Tony.

"Yeah, and it's lucky I was, really," said Clint.

* * *

"Clint," called Madame Bovary. Clint unwillingly raised his head and met her eyes.

"Are you all right, dear boy? You've never asked for a day off before in your whole time here. Are you sure you don't need the hospital?"

If you have a circus act, you don't go asking for time off unless you're going to endanger someone by going on. Living off the circus without paying your keep gets you fired, thought Clint. Of course he wasn't going to endanger his chances, especially because he was so young, and Ringmaster Grott had been reluctant to believe that a mere boy could keep up, running a decent act and living—if not rough, then not smooth, either—on the go for an extended period of time. Clint had won himself a trial run with a Robin Hood-style demonstration of his ability with a bow, and he'd worked as hard as any of the adults ever since. For the last couple days, he'd been feeling off, lonely like he hadn't been since the beginning. But today…he'd known from the moment he woke up if he tried to go on, he'd shoot someone by accident if he could even find the strength to draw the string. He'd told Ringmaster Grott he wasn't feeling well, and he'd spent most of the day in his sleeping bag. Madame Bovary had clucked and brought him his meals, which he'd eaten, out of a lingering desire not to hurt her feelings. Most of his emotions, though, felt like they'd just filtered out of him along with his willpower. Madame Bovary had a point, though—Clint had gone on with a sore throat, even a mild fever, so drawing the line at this…exhaustion was not the right word, but Clint didn't have a better one, was odd for him. He didn't think it warranted a hospital visit, though. He was probably just a little burnt out. He'd be fine tomorrow. Maybe.

"I've just been so…distracted," he admitted, the words feeling heavy and hard to form, first in his brain and then in his mouth. "I feel…heavy." Madame Bovary knelt down beside him and put a hand to his forehead. She was a big woman, well, she'd have to be, she was the lion tamer and lions don't have any respect for short people. But she was all tenderness with Clint whenever he was just the slightest bit sick or overtired. She finished with his forehead, performed a cursory check of his face, pulled on his chin and glanced inside his mouth. She shot him a concerned look.

"Clint, would it be all right with you if I slept beside you tonight?"

"Madame Bovary, I'm fine, really," Clint forced out.

"It would make me more comfortable, dear, so do answer the question."

"Sure." He trusted her not to molest him in his sleep or anything weird, and if she wanted to act like the mother he didn't have, he didn't have the energy to talk her out of it.

Clint woke up with what ought to have been a sense of foreboding. If he hated the idea of taking one day of leave, what was he supposed to do with two? Ringmaster Grott might let him stay based on good behavior, but it still didn't look good. What was more noticeable than not feeling any better, though, was the fact that he couldn't bring himself to care. What should have been a near-panicky worry was just a vague throb at the back of his mind. All he wanted to do was lie in bed. Maybe go back to sleep. And…scratch. It wasn't an itch like mosquito bites, or poison ivy, it felt like one of the deeper layers of skin itched, like he had to get the top layer off first. Hardly thinking about it, he raked his nails down his triceps, and, when that only exacerbated it, reached unthinkingly for his quiver.

"Clint!" Madame Bovary was hurrying back to her sleeping bag still beside his. Clint froze with the tip of an arrow poised above his right arm. She must have woken up early and gone to get breakfast while he was still asleep.

"If you damage any of your tendons, you won't be able to hold the bow for months," she told him. Her tone implied this was important. Clint knew this should be important. His bow was his livelihood. He knew that. Why didn't he care? Madame Bovary knelt beside him, and with surprising decisiveness, plucked the arrow from his hand, tossed it gently in the direction of the quiver, and pulled Clint into her lap. He couldn't help a gasp. He hadn't even known he wanted someone to hold him, but he desperately wanted her to hold him tighter, to never let him go. Madame Bovary seemed to understand this. She adjusted her position so she had her back to the wall and wrapped her arms tightly around him.

"It's going to be all right, Clint. This won't last. You're a wonderfully talented boy and you're going to make a real life for yourself. You're the best archer I've seen in my entire life, and I've seen some good archers. There's a future for that. Maybe not a conventional one, but a future. You have people here who care about you. Ringmaster Grott will understand, I'll tell him what's going on, and you'll be fine tomorrow, and you couldn't be in a better place for it. And you'll find more of them. A boy with a heart as big as yours won't ever be lonely for long."

And he was crying, trying desperately to hide his tears in her massive bosom, because he was _too old for this dammit _and her large hands were stroking his back, and _how did she know when Clint didn't know, exactly what he needed to hear? _

"How are you doing that?" he forced out at last, and his voice didn't crack too badly. "How do you know…"

"Exactly what you need to hear?" she finished. He nodded. She didn't let go, but she didn't say anything, either, for a minute.

"Because, a long time ago, I knew a tightrope walker in exactly the same position as you. And I was frantic, trying to figure out what he needed, because he didn't have the words to tell me, not then, and I was so scared, I thought he was going to kill himself and I didn't understand why. And then it ended, as though it had never happened, and I made him relive it, made him tell me exactly what was happening inside his head, so I wouldn't have to force it out of anybody else, because it's so hard for people like you and my tightrope walker even to say what they need, when they need it."

"What are we?" he managed to ask, because it still hurt, but he was able to focus, because she was holding him, holding him together it felt like, and she was telling him that she had forced another man to tell her how to help him, even before she knew him, so she cared, she must care.

"You're an omega, Clint," she answered softly. He looked at her, for that. Half-remembered stories flashed through his mind and didn't add up to a picture.

"What?"

"This will happen to you, for the rest of your life, every five to six months. Don't listen when people tell you every month. The early days are your warning. You will be lonelier than usual, crave company and touch more than usual. The first true day is your last warning. You lose your ability to care what's happening to you, so much so that you won't want to eat or drink or call anyone to help. But you must call them, Clint. You must find someone you trust, and explain to them what happens, before then, and you find the energy to call them, no matter what it takes.

"That lasts about a day. Sometimes less, sometimes more. The second day is the bad day. If you don't have anyone, your worst thoughts will come to mind, convincing you that the worst possible future is yours, that you aren't worthy of whatever you want most. It will hurt, inside." She released Clint with one arm, just long enough to tap her temple.

"You will want to hurt yourself. You will crave touch, someone to care for you, to hold you like I am doing, to tell you over and over again that the things your mind is telling you aren't true, to focus on you and make you _know _you are wanted, you are loved. If you have no one to do these things for you, you will want to kill yourself."

Clint looked at her, horrified. He had no words. Madame Bovary looked immeasurably sad.

"If you don't kill yourself, that stage lasts about a day, too, sometimes less, sometimes more. And then it goes away. Until next time. If you do have someone, you call them on the first day, because the more touch, the more kindness you get, and the earlier you get it, the easier it will be.

"You are old enough to know, Clint, that if you have someone you trust, sex is one of the most helpful things you can do. But not meaningless sex. The kind of sex where your partner is worshiping you, because then it is the best kind of touch and the best kind of feeling wanted there is. Be careful with this decision, Clint. Some friends can help you this way. Some lovers cannot. Choose wisely. It is never necessary."


	3. Tony x Pepper

"She told you about the sex when you were just a kid?" Tony looked halfway to impressed.

"I was a carnie, Tony," Clint pointed out. "No parents to watch my every move and never give me time alone. It was statistically almost certain I'd lose my virginity young. And think about it. How long did it take you to work out how that part of it worked?"

"Forever," Tony admitted. "I went through the first few with no one but the staff—I figured out after the first heat to tell them I was sick when I felt it coming on, and then they came to check on me and bring me food, so it wasn't fun, but I survived. And at MIT, I was in the middle of a project when my first one hit, and I didn't show at the lab, and my TA came to find me. She actually gave a damn, so she made an okay alpha. And she just did the cuddling thing for a while, and the symptoms mostly faded, and then I slept with her, and it was like the clouds broke on the heat. So when the next one hit, I dragged myself out to a bar and got laid, but she left afterwards, and it was even worse than the first heat. And the same thing happened the heat after that. So I stopped sleeping with people during heat, and got the bots to lock me up for two days and bring me food instead."

The unspoken _because no one gave a damn _hung in the room unsaid.

"And then Pepper happened, and she actually knew a thing or two about omegas."

* * *

Tony laid on the bed and listened vaguely to Pepper argue with JARVIS.

"Miss Potts, my primary function is to ensure Sir's well-being. He has expressed suicidal tendencies while in this mood, and it is necessary that the doors remain locked so he cannot act on those tendencies."

"JARVIS, you can override Tony's commands if I can prove I can help him better by you letting me in than keeping me locked out, right?"

JARVIS said something noncommittal and too low for Tony to hear.

"Well, riddle me this. These moods happen on a regular schedule with a frequency between five and six months, correct?" She continued, describing Tony's symptoms with an exactness that would have intrigued him if he could be intrigued. JARVIS could still be intrigued, and Tony could almost hear his lockdown command being overridden by logic.

"If that accurately describes Tony's condition, then I know what is wrong with him and how to help him. And you can't help him, JARVIS, except by keeping him from killing himself, but I can keep him from wanting to kill himself. He needs touch."

The door hissed open. Tony tried to glare at her. It didn't work.

"Why didn't you tell me you're an omega, you silly man?" asked Pepper, and she climbed into bed with him, kicking off her shoes and wrapping herself around him. Tony couldn't hold back a moan.

Pepper stayed with him like that, talking to him and stroking his stubbled cheek, and the worst of the symptoms faded. Then she kissed him, and Tony wiggled away.

"No, Pep…sex is bad."

She snorted, and he stared at her.

"Sorry, it's just…Tony Stark just said sex is bad." He started to laugh, and she laughed with him.

"Seriously, though. Sex during heat makes it worse."

"That's because it doesn't mean anything," she said promptly.

"And with you it will? We're not, you know, in love or anything. You don't love me, right? Because it's only been a few nights, and I've gotten women claiming to love me the morning after, okay, but you really have more sense than that and it isn't even the morning after yet, so—"

"It's not that I have to be in love with you," she answered. "I just have to treat you like I care about you during the sex."

And while Tony was staring at her, momentarily struck dumb for once in his non-depressed life, Pepper kissed him again. And then she began to kiss him all over, on his forehead and cheeks, down his neck, his arms. She sucked on the tips of his fingers, and Tony nearly leapt out of bed. And even as she rode him, even as she came, she never stopped looking right into his eyes. And afterwards, Tony decided that even if she wasn't in love with him, it was the closest thing to love, period, he'd gotten from anyone since the real Jarvis, and that he wasn't letting this woman go if he could help it.

The next morning, she was calm and efficient, her usual self again, and Tony's insecurities—always present, only exacerbated by heat—came trickling back in. She'd only done it to help out her ailing boss, of course, it was just part of the job to her, but _fucking hell_—and then she'd pulled him into a deserted hallway and said, "I'm not going to sleep with you regularly. You like sex for its own sake, and when you're just fucking because you're horny, I don't want any part of that. But I am your friend, and I do care about you and your well-being, and once every six months, to remind you that you matter and that people care about you, I will sleep with you then."


	4. Clint x Coulson

"I have a new respect for that woman," said Clint.

"Aye, Lady Potts is a formidable friend as well as a formidable enemy," agreed Thor.

"So Pepper was your first long-term alpha," mused Clint.

"Was Natasha yours?" asked Tony. "I wondered about you two."

"Yeah. She was the only one I trusted for a long time," Clint admitted. "She was a weird alpha, you know? She doesn't do caring and shit. But the first time I knew she was my best shot at an alpha, I told her I was due, and she just said, "Tell me what you need," and I did. And she never did the cuddle thing much, but if you start having sex as soon as you wake up with it, you can spend the whole cycle feeling like a normal human being, just a normal human being that has sex three, four times a day for two days straight, as long as you feel wanted enough. And she couldn't really say mushy stuff about how important I was, she's just not wired for that anymore if she ever was, but there was something in the way she touched me, looked at me…" He shrugged. "It was enough."

"Probably helps that the Black Widow doesn't sleep with people for their sake. You had to know she cared about you just from that on some level," Tony said, uncharacteristically serious.

"Phil became my alpha after she was injured on an op," said Clint. "She was hurt, and I wasn't, not badly, but I was overdue for heat and I was panicking because I knew as soon as the adrenaline left my system, it would be there, ready to eat me up, and I'd never done heat without an alpha in some capacity."

"Some capacity?"

"I did it over the phone once. Didn't get any touch, but just having someone on the line telling me it would go away the next day, that the things I was thinking weren't true, that was enough to keep me alive."

"Has this ever happened on a mission?" asked Thor with some concern. "It would seem to severely impede your ability to perform them."

"No shit it would," said Clint, "but the kind of adrenaline level you have in your system when you're doing something stressful, even when you're not in combat? Keeps it away. As soon as your situation calms down, your adrenaline and cortisol levels drop, it's back on top of you. So I'm not going to go into heat on a mission unless it's a total milk run and I'm actually relaxed. I still try to avoid it. But the first heat with Phil, that mission ran longer than expected, right through when my heat was supposed to be, and so I get released from medical, and she doesn't, and I have no idea what to do when Phil calls me in for a debrief."

* * *

"Agent." Clint jumped. He knew he hadn't been listening to whatever Coulson was saying, which would be suicide if he wasn't concerned about, y'know, _actually _committing suicide in two days or so.

"Something is wrong," said Coulson. It wasn't a question. Clint sighed. SHIELD was a progressive organization in many ways. The little Clint'd heard about omegas in SHIELD was positive, and he knew they had good policies for other, less-marginalized groups. He knew he was a valuable asset, and he figured Coulson wouldn't throw him under the bus. It was still personal as hell, so he kept it short.

"I'm an omega, sir. My heat was due to begin yesterday, and is delayed, probably due to the heightened adrenaline. Natasha is my alpha."

Coulson, bless him, put together the pieces without a second's thought. A range of emotions flickered across his face, and Clint mentally congratulated himself on being the first person in known SHIELD history to make Phil Coulson look like he didn't know what to do.

"Clint…" said Coulson, "Do you trust me?"

"I allow you to send me into danger on a regular basis, sir," said Clint, because there was _no way _Coulson was offering what it sounded like he was offering.

"Yes, but it's one thing to trust me with your life, Agent, and quite another to trust me with your mind," said Coulson softly. "Do you trust me to share your heat?"

"Do you know what you're offering, sir?" asked Clint boldly.

"Comfort," said Phil promptly, not sounding offended. "Care. Physical and mental. Not sex, unless you want it, in which case I'm offering that too."

"Yes," Clint breathed, "I trust you." Because he did trust Phil, and as long as Phil knew that what he was getting wasn't a clingy, hyper-horny sex slave for a two-day orgy like the movies said, well, if he was honest with himself, he really liked the idea of Phil sharing his heat.

"Then let's finish this debrief," said Phil promptly. "And afterwards, do you want to come to my place or do you want me to come to yours?"

"My place," said Clint after a moment's hesitation. The added comfort of being in a familiar environment outweighed the embarrassment of having his boss see his apartment.

The panic dealt with, Clint was able to concentrate on the debrief. They dropped by Medical long enough for him to leave Tasha a note: In heat, found alpha, will be fine. Get better. CB. Clint drove them back to his apartment. He dug his key out of his rucksack, opened the door, and tried to ignore the surrealness of Phil Coulson following himself in.

"Make yourself comfortable," said Clint. "Can I get you anything?"

"Water?" said Phil, and Clint got him one, as well as a water for himself.

It was weird to hand Phil a glass of water while Phil was sitting on Clint's couch. It was even weirder to sit down across from him and stare at a point on the wall.

"Well…how do you want to do this?" asked Clint, feeling monumentally stupid, because how would Phil know how he wants to do this, Clint was the one who lived this. And yet, how could he just, well, take what he wants? Cuddle up to his _boss _on the couch, curl up under his arm? He didn't need the contact yet, the heat hadn't yet hit, and Phil knew it. Suddenly, Clint wasn't even sure what he had been offered. It was possible Phil only meant to hang out and watch television until Clint couldn't hide the symptoms anymore, and then give him a cuddle and some praise on his latest op.

"Can I start by telling you that you're amazing?" asked Phil, and Clint's heart skipped a beat. Phil's tone was hesitant, but it sounded like nervousness, not unsurety. What did Phil have to be nervous about? He was the one in control, he was the one doing Clint a favor. He was _Phil Coulson_, the one that made junior officers quiver at the very sound of his name. The rational part of his brain reminded Clint that Phil had offered to help him through heat, which carried more than a few sexual connotations, and he could probably get in trouble for this. But the unquenchable corner of optimism of Clint's mind couldn't stop thinking there was more to that statement, that it was too oddly worded to be merely 'is this how I help you'. He nodded.

And Phil began to talk, meeting Clint's eyes brazenly. And he told him things Clint had never noticed about himself, things Clint had noticed but hadn't thought anyone else had. Things about everything from his brain—tactical ability, intelligence—to his heart—kind—to things he didn't even know how to categorize: "When you're faced with a villain, you stare him down as though he has no business being on your turf."

Phil finished with, "I care about you, Barton. I care that this condition makes you see yourself as nothing, because it's not true."

Clint couldn't look at him. Everything Phil was saying to him sounded like more than ordinary alpha comfort. _You just think that because Tasha was your alpha for so long, _his brain informed him, and _He'd do this for any of his agents._ And that small speck of doubt kept his eyes glued to the floor. There was silence for a few seconds.

"Too much?" asked Phil quietly, and that's what made Clint glance up at him. He hoped his expression conveyed the war of _Yes _and _No _going on in his head, because he sure as hell didn't have words to answer. Phil's expression softened from nervousness (again, nervousness?) to understanding. "Come here?" he asked, motioning to the spot beside him on the couch. Clint got up and crossed to the couch, sitting down close to, but not touching Phil. Phil draped an arm around him and oh-so-tentatively began to run his fingers up and down Clint's arm.

"This okay?"

Clint shifted. "Yeah, but you know, you don't have to do this yet. I mean, my heat hasn't started yet."

"But it will, and faster than you expect, and the earlier the better," Coulson said, abruptly all efficiency once more. "Is this making you uncomfortable?"

Honesty was always the best policy when it came to Coulson, so Clint stared at the floor and blurted, "Yeah, a little. But because I can't figure where you're coming from. Like, you'd do this for any of your agents, wouldn't you? So I'm not special. But you're talking to me like I am. So I'm trying to figure out how far you mean everything you're saying, which isn't how this is supposed to go."

"Look at me?" asked Phil, and it was a request, not an order, so Clint did. "I'd offer to any agent on my watch who needed my help, who didn't have a better source of comfort—but I'm glad it's you who asked. Because I want to be the one to hold you through it. Because you are special. Because heat isn't a reason for me to come up with things to tell you about how much I admire and respect you, it's a reason for me to tell you all the things I already came up with. It's a reason to stop holding my tongue, to stop letting fear and professionalism get in the way of me telling you I care about you."

Clint forced himself to resume breathing and leaned into Phil.

"I'm glad it's you, too," he answered, the best he could come up with.

Phil's fingers became more sure, moving up to stroke through Clint's hair.

"D'you wanna watch a movie?" Clint asked, and immediately felt stupid.

But Phil said, "Sure. Any preference?"

Clint shook his head—he didn't have _strong _preferences at any rate, and he figured he'd pushed his luck enough.

"I have a soft spot for _Die Hard_," said Phil, going to the bookshelf and pulling one of the more visible movies from the shelf.

"Really?" asked Clint, interested. "I like it for all the inaccuracies."

"Oh, me too—pointing them all out never gets old," said Phil, popping it in.

So they cuddled on the sofa, taking turns calling out everything less than completely accurate and intelligently decided.

"Ready for bed?" Phil asked when it was over, and when Clint stiffened, added, "I'm fine with sleeping on the couch. Or if you've changed your mind, I can still go home."

Clint thought about it for a few seconds, then said, "No, come to bed. But to sleep, yeah?"

"Of course," said Phil, and proceeded to get changed in the bathroom.

Clint had a reasonably-sized bed—perks of a SHIELD paycheck and warranted by being an omega—so they were able to fall asleep without being completely pressed up against each other.

Clint had to admit it was worth starting early when he woke somewhat less depressed than he usually did on day 1. Phil had beaten him out of bed and was making breakfast, judging by the noise and the smells. He only had to wait a little longer for Phil to come back in the room, in jeans and a t-shirt, freshly showered, and carrying a plate with waffles and eggs and a glass of orange juice.

"Breakfast in bed?" asked Clint.

"You deserve it," was all Phil said before setting down the plate and glass by Clint and heading back to the kitchen for his own. They ate mostly in silence. Clint complimented Phil's waffle skills. Phil looked pleased.

When Phil took the dishes back to the kitchen, Clint dragged himself out of bed for a shower and a change of clothes—into a t-shirt and sweats, but somehow he didn't think Coulson would judge him for dressing down in heat. It was more than he usually managed. When he got out, Phil'd done the dishes and tidied up the kitchen, and he climbed back in bed with Clint, curling around him tentatively.

"This okay?"

In answer, Clint slipped his arms around Phil. This close, out of his suit, Phil didn't look like badass Agent Coulson. He'd dropped the stoic nothing-fazes-me mask—in fact, he dropped it the second Clint told him, Clint realized. He looked hopeful, tentative, caring, focused on Clint in a way he wasn't used to. Phil stroked Clint's still-wet hair, running a hand down his neck and over the fabric of his t-shirt, picking out individual muscles.

"May I kiss you?" whispered Phil, and there was still a part of Clint's brain telling him Phil Coulson didn't want him like that, couldn't possibly want him like that, but the look in Phil's eyes and the desire buzzing behind Clint's lips made him whisper,

"Yes."

The kiss was soft and slow and sweet and nothing like Clint had ever been kissed. They broke apart eventually, just because you can only just kiss for so long.

"Answer me something straight," said Clint, cursing himself in his head for the pun but knowing Phil wouldn't say anything. "Do you want something out of this?" No, that came out wrong. "Something more?"

"I haven't already ruined my chances of letting you think this is a two-night stand?" asked Phil, smiling softly. "I wasn't going to ask outright in case it made you too uncomfortable. You need an alpha more than I need an answer tonight. But yes, Clint. I care about you. I'm attracted to you. I'd love to take you out sometime. You're not obligated to do anything, of course—I'm here until the heat's done, as long as you still want me to share it. You don't owe me anything for that."

Clint kissed him again. "What do you say to just making out, then?" he asked after they broke apart. "And you can take me out after heat. Just—people use omegas for sex sometimes, and if this is going to be real, I just wanna be sure you're really in it. I don't want to rush into things."

"That sounds good to me," replied Phil, and they alternated kissing like teenagers and cuddling like an old married couple until the heat was through. Clint hardly felt the depression at all.


	5. This one isn't actually about a heat

"Agent was something else, huh?" asked Tony, and Clint nodded.

"I made him wait ages for sex, and he never complained, never even said, 'Well, you have reason to be antsy' just put on his Agent Coulson face and told me I didn't owe him anything."

"Well, fuck, you don't," said Tony. "People all think that, just 'cause we're omegas, and they're willing to give us a hand occasionally, that we're all just going to hop in bed all the time. I mean, I'm hardly a great example, I do just hop in bed all the time." He gave a self-deprecating laugh. "But 'heat' means something so totally different for every other animal in existence. It sucks."

"Phil understood all that, better than I did, even," said Clint miserably.

"Steve didn't, not at first," said Tony. "But he didn't need to. After Pepper and I broke up—we should never have crossed the line, alpha to girlfriend, she never wanted that, but we just got so caught up—anyway, I went back to locking myself up, until Steve wormed out of Pepper what was wrong with me, and he didn't even give her time to explain it all, just got the gist and ran upstairs and sweet-talked JARVIS into letting him in. I've never seen anyone sweet-talk JARVIS before. Pepper out-logicked him, but I swear Steve did a full-blown emotional appeal to my _A.I. _And he _cried _when he realized how bad it was, and curled up around me like some kind of dog and he made me explain it to him afterwards, and then he told me I was never doing that alone again if I'd have him."

"Phil cried, too, the one day he couldn't get home until the morning of day 2," said Clint, and his jaw was sharp now.

"Fuck—and he's gone," said Tony, realizing. "Back to Natasha—after having that?"

"My brothers, I mourn for your pain," said Thor, and gathered them both in a hug—or tried to. Tony wriggled out and backed away.

"You comfort him, 'cause that's serious pain, that deserves mourning, I haven't lost the love of my life, he's upstairs, and he's a supersoldier, and I'm an insensitive dick…" That was as far as he got before Thor put a foot on the couch, leaned out over the back of it, and literally hauled him back.

"Dude, you did tons of heats totally alone, I never had to do that," said Clint, voice mostly steady through the now-escaping tears. "That's valid pain. I'm kind of surprised you're still alive."

Tony, amazingly, didn't have an answer to that.

"Midgard wrongs you both, and all your kind, by denying this suffering," Thor told them somberly, and Tony gave in, leaning into Thor and Clint.

They clung to each other until Bruce poked his head in.

"It's time for dinner—is everyone all right?"

"Fine, fine, manly bonding session, sorry we forgot to invite you, you're totally manly," said Tony, extricating himself from the embrace with some difficulty.

"All right, well, dinner's on the table," said Bruce and ducked out again. Clint also stood and made to follow Tony.

"You will just go on living in this manner?" asked Thor, with seeming incomprehension.

"Well, yeah," said Tony. "These are our lives."

* * *

A/N: Thanks for sticking it out!

Do send me a note if I missed any present tense sneaking in there—it's all of a sudden ridiculously difficult to stay in one tense.

Disclaimer time (I know it's weird to have them at the end, so sue me): I have recently realized I don't know enough about Clint's canon past to have made it look particularly accurate. Oh, well, I'm not going to sweat it. Put it down to alternate universe if you like.

The ending lines are a little odd because they're talking about two different things, but it felt like the right ending point. Thor's asking, because this is Thor's answer to problems, you're not going to fight? Try to change things for omegas? Tony's already shot that down in the beginning of the conversation—he believes it's a hopeless cause—so he doesn't hear that, he's thinking of his own mental scars for spending so many heats alone and Clint's mourning his lover, and it's simple to him—what is there to change?

Although my description of omega heat is based off of recurrent depression, I'd like to make crystal clear a few differences. Sex does not necessarily do anything to alleviate depression. Cuddling/being reminded you're not a screwup also does not always help. And I only wish depression was this predictable, in either time, intensity, or progression. I mostly placed all that in there to plant the seeds of truth that the public perception of omegas grew out of—it is indeed cyclical, and it is indeed often treated with sex, but the use of the word 'heat' is meant to be a complete misnomer. I'm using the omegaverse trope as an allegory for how mental illness is actually treated in our society—not an exact parallel, people don't really think people with depression are all just horny, but you can bet some have been told they just need to get laid, and there's the general misperception of exactly what mental illnesses are. Also, about having no guarantee of a job.

Finally, I'm getting sick of the tendencies of fanfiction characters to leap into bed as soon as they're officially both aware they're both interested. This isn't the best example they could be setting, in my opinion, since often one or both parties isn't ready for sex right off the bat—or, less commonly, ever. This is reasonably uncommon in fanfiction, except when one of the parties has endured some kind of sex-related trauma in the past or the parties are underage, and I haven't seen it at all in Clint/Coulson fanfiction. So, my attempt to assure people everywhere that just because you're of age, not traumatized, and in a relationship, does not mean you owe the other person sex.

Off soapbox now. Hope you enjoyed the ride.


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